Don’t ask what I really wanted to title this post. And yes I am steaming. After posting my sixth exclusive article on hubpages I get this email:
A link to your Hub: What I Learned Selling Final Expense Insurance
Dear AndrewHavens,
We wanted to let you know that What I Learned Selling Final Expense Insurance has the opportunity to become Featured! Featured articles are showcased on Topic Pages and Related articles listings. They are also made available to search engines. We want your article to succeed and strongly recommend making a few improvements.
The perks of a Featured article don’t end at increased visibility online. Featured articles are likely to be more successful over the long run when it comes to traffic, earnings, and augmenting your personal online brand.
It’s possible that your article is not Featured because it contains spammy elements. Perhaps it was written for a link, or has excessive product capsules or product capsules that are not directly related to the content. Even articles that appear to be high quality can be spammy. We recommend that you remove any spammy elements from your article.
If you don’t see any spammy elements in your article, then it was likely defeatured for failing to meet HubPages’ general quality standards. The article may have been too short or underdeveloped, had formatting issues, broken or unrelated links, and/or significant grammatical errors. For more help on this front, please read the Elements of a Stellar Article Learning Center guide.
What else can you do to improve your article? High-quality articles are original, in depth, and media rich. For starters, check out our Learning Center entry on How to Improve the Quality of an Article for detailed tips, helpful links, and before/after example articles.
Lastly, if you would like personalized feedback on how to make your article better, we invite you to post in the Improving Your Article Forum.
Thank you for taking the time to update and improve your work!
Cheers,
The HubPages team
This is my response:
Hello,
Thank you for your heads up. I’m not sure I understand. There were two links at the end of this article to my book, which I strongly advocate because it provides a great deal more information that one can put in a single article. The book only lightly touches on my experience while providing much needed information on the basics of selecting and buying life insurance. Note, I no longer sell life insurance nor do I recommend any specific insurance companies or policies in the book. As for the link itself, it only leads to a page with more information about the book itself. Anyone wishing to purchase the book itself would need to click on the provided link and only then be directed to a page where they can choose what vendor they would like to purchase from. In other words, there is no direct purchase link on this page either.
Of all the things one could purchase in this world, life insurance is one of the most incorrectly sold products out there. Most people won’t buy until they are facing a “good salesman”. The only problem is the “good salesman” may or may not sell or even have access to what these individuals really need. Life insurance should be bought, not sold.
Consider this: the cheapest life insurance available will cost more for a single month’s premium than my ebook at $4.99, In paperback at $12.99, it might be possible to purchase a month’s worth of coverage. My point? The book is an absolute bargain that can save anyone thousands of dollars and quite possibly save their family from financial disaster.
So, please, explain to me what I’m doing wrong. If hubpages objects to my linking to my book (directly or indirectly) then I’m not interested in providing what I feel is valuable content for your readers.
For the sake of argument, I removed one of the two links to my book. Now the entire 1534 word article has exactly one link. Please tell me if this is too much and I will remove it immediately.
Kind regards
Andrew Havens
Ya know? They want my content but “God forbid” I should promote my book on their site. Well, it is their site and they can make the rules but I can post my content somewhere else. Why post there in the first place? Traffic. They get far more traffic than I do. In just a few days, those six articles were viewed 35 times or one short of an average of six times each. My site is not generating that kind of traffic. I’m not sure it ever will but I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide hubpages with free content to build their traffic without some sugar coming back to me.
By the way, the reply I sent came back as “undeliverable”. They can spout their bs all day long but they can’t be “bothered” to read my response. I can tell you this much, if you need to contact me, I’m easy to find. I’ll read your comment, your complaint, whatever and I will respond. I won’t guarantee you will like my response but at least I’ll answer you. If you are wondering, my response to “The HubPages team” is about as nasty as I tend to get. I won’t trade insults. I’ve been done with the grade school stuff for a while now. However I’ll engage anyone in a lively debate.
Rant done. On to something more productive
